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There is a fit & happier person inside everyone

Monthly Archives: May 2017

This month’s Small Step is simple: add one strength training workout to your weekly routine. A mere 30 minute weekly commitment and no special equipment required. You can accomplish this while listening to a podcast, waiting for laundry to finish or watching television. But why is strength training even necessary?

The Problem: Evolution

For most women approaching middle age, losing or maintaining weight becomes more difficult because it’s a physiological and evolutionary truth that an aging woman will lose lean mass (muscle and bone) and often increase fat mass.

Lean mass requires calories to maintain while fat serves as insulation and a long-term energy source. So the body shed lean mass to slow metabolism. Less lean mass and a slower metabolism meant that less food was required to nourish the body and excess consumption could be stored as body fat to sustain her through scarcer times. We’re all here because our ancestors’ bodies adapted this way.

But what was a survival adaptation for them is a fitness hurdle for us. We shed an average of 1/2 pound of lean mass per year beginning at age 30. A vicious cycle of lean mass loss, slowing metabolism, leading to increasing fat mass, further slowing metabolism and accelerating lean mass loss.

Push Ups

If you’re among the few females who’ve super metabolism despite not having the muscle mass and accompanying testosterone of a male, thank your lucky stars and your genes because you may be able to avoid weight gain. But that doesn’t protect you from losing lean mass and, therefore, increasing the ratio of fat to lean mass. Increasing fat mass, even without gaining body weight, is unhealthy because it raises risks for cardiovascular disease, hypertension, high bad cholesterol, low good cholesterol and osteoporosis.

Guys aren’t immune. A similar, albeit less drastic, phenomenon occurs in men as testosterone levels decrease at middle age and beyond.

The Solution: Strength Training

Calorie reduction is only a temporary stop-gap because eventually the body will believe it’s in scarce mode and accelerate the cycle. While cardiovascular exercise can burn some excess calories, it cannot break the cycle because it doesn’t build lean mass. Only regular strength training increases bone density and muscle mass to break the cycle.

To stop losing lean mass and make modest gains, a minimum of one full-body strength training bout per week is recommended. However, to make more significant gains in lean mass and strength and realize visible toning, two or three bouts per week is necessary.

Squats

All lean mass gains come in the 48 hours after the workout. Lean tissue breaks down during resistance training. It’s in the process of regeneration afterwards that we regain and build more tissue. Therefore, at least one day off after a strength training session is necessary. Every other day is optimal with a maximum of three sessions weekly. Strength training doesn’t affect the timing of cardiovascular training. It’s perfectly safe to do cardio the day before, after or even the same day as strength training.

Options

Classes: If you belong to a gym, club or studio that offers classes, they likely offer strengthiening or cardio-strength combo classes. Look for words like pump, sculpt, Pilates or TRX in the title.

Personal Trainer: While most people feel comfortable doing cardio activities without consulting an expert, not so with strength training. Many of my clients come to me for assistance in establishing a strength training program to compliment the cardio they already do.

Video/Digital: There’s an endless amount of free strength training videos available online as well as reasonably priced video and digital subscriptions, rentals and purchases. Here’s a sampling:

DIY: Here’s a link to my 30 minute no equipment strength and flexibility training workout. Or scroll to the bottom to find links to strength workouts to compliment your favorite cardio or sports activities. These are perfect to do while watching TV.

Already Strength Training?

If you already strength train but not three times per week, this month’s Small Step should be to add another bout to your regular routine. If that’s not possible or if you’re already maximizing strength training opportunities, I recommend changing up your strength workouts. After strength training the same way over time, our bodies no longer make significant gains. Changing how you work muscles can give you a boost in lean mass and metabolism.

Pilates Reformer

While this month’s Small Step is straight-forward it can be a tall order for many of us. But none of us can consider ourselves truly fit without it.

If you’re new to the Small Steps series, you can read about the philosophy and strategies of the series here. Know the Small Steps strategies don’t need to be done in any particular order and are independent of one another. So, you can begin the series with this post, continue throughout the rest of the year and pick up what you missed next year.

The “Five Secrets of Steady Exercisers” is revealed in today’s Wall Street Journal. The article explains exercise and human behavior scientists contend only about 21% of American adults exercise regularly and they’ve endeavored to identify what behaviors these individuals have in common. The belief being, if that code can be cracked, it may help the other 79%, many of whom attempt but fail to convert from couch potato to exercise dynamo year after year. They’ve found five habits most regular exercisers have in common.

Being a convert myself and helping to convert others, I know a thing or two about this evasive phenomenon. Today I’m taking these five secrets and expanding on them, adding context, expertise and personal experience. If you’re among the 79% who’ve tried unsuccessfully to crack the code of conversion, this post’s for you.

WSJ Secret: “They exercise at the same time most days.”

Michelle’s Code: Scheduling leads to consistency. If you place work meetings, kid’s extracurricular activities and doctor appointments on an electronic or paper calendar so you won’t double book or forget about it, you should be scheduling your workouts the same way and giving them the same priority.

While the WSJ rule doesn’t specify that regular exercisers schedule their exercise, working out at the same time most days is essentially the same thing. The point is a specific time is carved out most days and given top priority. Exercise dynamos needn’t actually put their workout sessions on a calendar any more than they need to put brushing their teeth on the calendar.

But, for those who haven’t yet created exercise habits, physically scheduling and mentally prioritizing are musts. Not only for the first week or the first month but for at least a year. It’s more important that you schedule them at times when they’re least likely to get bumped on any given day than to schedule them at the same time every day.

WSJ Secret: “An increasing number of active people are widening their definition of exercise.”

Michelle’s Code: Seek out ways to move every day. People trying to establish a workout routine tend to view exercise as an “other” in their daily lives. They see it as something separate they must add to everything else they need to accomplish during the day. Regular exercisers tend to view dedicated workouts as on par with walking during their commute, yard work, cleaning, playing soccer with their kids and preparing to host a celebratory meal.

It may seem counterintuitive, but if you consider daily activities that involve walking or standing along with twisting, bending, lifting, pushing or pulling as constituting exercise, even if they don’t induce perspiration or last only ten minutes at a time, you’re more likely to also perform dedicated workouts regularly. What workout dynamos understand is active, in all its forms, is the opposite of sedentary. Your heart and lungs don’t know if you’re on a treadmill, at a Soul Cycle class or digging a hole to plant a sapling. If you’re moving, you’re exercising.

Once you internalize this, you take the pressure off. You can legitimately believe, while you wish you hadn’t overslept and missed your morning Pilates class, you haven’t failed because you walked during your lunch hour and cleaned up the playroom after the kids went to bed.

Michelle’s Code: Always be prepared to be active. Dynamos, for example, have their workout items out and ready for the next day before going to bed. Using the example from the last paragraph, a regular exerciser also has a pair of sneakers at work so, on the occasion she misses Pilates, she can walk during her lunch hour.

Ultimately, it’s a no-excuses mindset. If you believe any and all activity constitutes exercise, then you’ll set up your environment to be sure any tool you may need to take advantage of an opportunity to be active is available to you wherever you are. Never allow yourself an excuse to say no to an opportunity to exercise.

Courtesy of Bing Images

WSJ Secret: “They’re more flexible than infrequent exercisers about how long or vigorously they exercise.”

Michelle’s Code: Turn the rigid exercise mindset on its head. To be fair to the 79% considered inactive, the rigid exercise mindset comes straight from the fitness industry. Even the guidelines on exercise from U.S. Health and Human Services suggest that exercise should be of a certain duration, frequency and intensity to count.

Science proves nothing could be further from the truth. By every measure, several short bouts of any exercise that cumulatively add up to one hour is equal to one hour straight of that same exercise. Furthermore, several short bouts of high intensity exercise is more beneficial, by every measure, than one longer continuous bout of that same exercise at a lower intensity. Activity of any form, duration and intensity is always beneficial and always infinitely better than inactivity.

When you embrace this healthier mindset, every activity you engage in becomes a win and psychologically encourages you to get another win. When you only count a one-hour Zumba class as exercise, then any time you miss that class, it’s counted as a failure and you’re psychologically discouraged from trying again for a win.

WSJ Secret: “They’re more likely to exercise for pleasure than for weight loss or other long-term health goals.”

Michelle’s Code: Shift your goals. This is undeniably the most difficult to do. There’s so much pressure to exercise to achieve aesthetic changes. Yet, aesthetic goals don’t work well in the short-term and rarely work in the long-term.

Again, science is our friend. We now know it’s better to be fat and active than to be skinny and inactive. Let that one sink in for a minute.

What does better mean? It means a lower mortality rate, higher quality of life, better sleep, greater feelings of well-being, elevated energy levels and sex drive and a more positive body image. The true embodiment of fit and happier.

Now that science is showing dietary fats aren’t the primary cause of the obesity and metabolic disorder epidemics plaguing Western societies, dietary sugars are getting a closer look. It does appear over-consumption of sugar, added sugars in particular, are contributing factors to the increasing numbers of obese and individuals with Type II diabetes of recent decades. So, today we’re talking sugar.

What Is Sugar?

Sugar is the layman’s term for saccharides. Saccharides reside naturally in any food in our diet that contains carbohydrates. Therefore, virtually every food derived from plants – beans, nuts, fruits, vegetables, grains – contains some form of sugar. Dairy also contains natural sugars.

The simplest form of saccharides are monosaccharides of which there are three: glucose (aka dextrose), fructose and galactose. Many foods contain combinations of two monosaccharides, known as disaccharides. There are three types of disaccharides: sucrose in produce (glucose + fructose); maltose in grains (two glucose molecules); lactose in milk (galactose + glucose).

Do We Need Sugar?

Yes, we do need sugar. And, if you’ve ever experienced a bout of low blood sugar that led to light-headedness or fainting, you understand why.

All sugars in our diet are broken down by the digestive process into fructose and glucose and sent to the liver where they’re further processed into glycogen. Some is stored and some is released into the blood, known as blood glucose. Blood glucose is necessary to maintain cell function and to store in muscle as fuel for movement.

However, too much glucose in the blood can be toxic. In response to glycogen being produced in the liver, the pancreas releases the hormone insulin, which serves as the gatekeeper to blood glucose. Insulin is necessary to keep blood glucose from getting too high.

People who have Type II diabetes have insulin resistance and some are also inefficient at producing insulin. Unless they take lifestyle or drug interventions, their blood glucose will be chronically high. There are many theories as to why the number of adults and children developing diabetes has increased. One theory is the over-consumption of sugars, resulting in a rollercoaster ride of blood glucose and insulin production which could lead to dysfunction.

Diabetes isn’t the only threat from over-consumption of sugars. Unused carbohydrates get stored as body fat. Some body fat is vital. But an excess of it, especially visceral fat stored in the abdomen, is unhealthy.

Sugar Consumption & The Glycemic Index

As we’ve learned with fats and proteins, we need them to survive but too much, particularly of the wrong kind, can be detrimental to our health. The same is true of carbohydrates and the sugars they contain. What’s the right kind of sugar and how much is enough?

The quest to answer this question led scientists to develop The Glycemic Index (GI). The GI ranks foods on a scale from 0 to 100. The higher the number the food is assigned, the higher that particular food raises blood glucose levels after consumption.

Many assume fruits contain more sugars than vegetables and, while that’s generally true, it’s not always the case. Yes, lettuce’s GI is 10 and watermelon’s GI is 72. But cherries have a GI of 22 while pumpkin’s is 75. The problem with using generalities or a GI number to guide food choices is that it’s more complicated than that. For example, watermelon’s GI is seven points higher than granulated sugar. Even without taking into consideration that watermelon has vitamins, minerals and fiber and sugar doesn’t, no reasonable person would conclude it’s healthier to eat sugar over watermelon.

What we need to be careful about is added sugars – sweeteners added to pre-packaged and home prepared foods. Added sweeteners like granulated sugar, syrups and honey are predominantly sugar with little to no nutritional value. Too much of them in addition to the natural sugars we already consume in whole foods is how we’re likely getting into trouble.

Here’s an overview of common added sweeteners:

Table Sugars

Raw Sugar: Most table sugar comes from either sugar cane or sugar beets. In both cases, the plant is heated into juice and put through a centrifuge. This separates the syrup from the sugar crystals. Molasses is a by-product of this process. These sugar crystals, called raw sugar, are brown, course and 97.5% sucrose. The remaining 2.5% is molasses which contains minerals and water. Turbinado sugar is raw sugar with the surface molasses washed off making it appear whiter.

White Granulated Sugar: White sugar (99.9% sucrose) is the result of refining raw sugar by removing the molasses and grinding into finer crystals. Simple (cane) syrup is made by dissolving granulated sugar in boiling water, forming a sweet liquid that incorporates better into cold drinks than grains of sugar.

Confectioner’s Sugar: Powdered sugar is white granulated sugar that’s milled to a powder for a lighter texture. An anti-caking agent, such as corn starch, is often added.

Brown Sugar: Brown sugar is granulated sugar with molasses added back in. Therefore, brown sugar has traces of minerals and water and is slightly less sweet than white sugar. Dark brown sugar has a higher molasses content compared to light brown sugar.

Invert Sugar: The product of the hydrolysis of sucrose into equal parts fructose and glucose. This occurs naturally in fruits and honey. Food manufacturers duplicate this process to produce invert cane sugar for packaged foods.

Corn Syrup

Corn syrup is produced by removing the starch from the corn kernel, mixing it with hydrochloric acid and applying heat under pressure. This process converts the starch molecules to sugar. The syrup is filtered for impurities and evaporated to remove excess water. Store-bought corn syrup is dextrose which is 75% the sweetness of sucrose.

High Fructose Corn Syrup: Developed to create a sweeter corn syrup to use in place of granulated sugar in processed foods and soft drinks. Corn syrup goes through a series of enzyme applications and heat to convert the dextrose to fructose. The longer the process, the higher the concentration of fructose and the sweeter it is.

Plant Syrups & Nectars

Fruit nectars (such as agave) and tree saps (such as maple) are extracted from the plant and boiled to remove water and concentrate the natural sugars into a syrup. Raw syrups are less refined (heated at lower temperatures and less filtered) than regular syrups.

Honey

Raw Honey: Honeycombs are placed in a centrifuge to separate the honey from the comb. The extracted honey passes through a sieve to remove wax particles and debris. The honey is heated to 120° to melt crystals and filtered again. This is when raw honey is bottled. It’s thicker than processed honey and likely to have a milky appearance. It contains natural enzymes and other nutrients such as antioxidants. About 5% of commercial honey is bottled in this raw form.

Refined Honey: Raw honey is put through a flash heating at 165°, paper filtering and flash cooling before bottling. The process creates a clearer, thinner liquid compared to raw honey but has no nutrient properties. Honey is 40% fructose, 30% glucose and 20% water.

Sweet Endings

The take-away is get the bulk of your carbohydrates from whole, unprocessed foods and keep added sugars to a minimum. Consume healthy proteins and fats along with healthy carbohydrates to guard against over-consuming carbs as a whole.

When choosing products with added sugars, be skimpy in consumption and choose wisely. Less added sugar is always better than more and less processed is always better than more processed. When adding sweeteners during food prep, consider reducing the amount or omitting whenever possible.

Last week I introduced this month’s Small Step: Go Old School. If there’s one month of my Small Steps program that best epitomizes my personal path to fitness, it’s this one. Though I take advantage of tech advances, they’re really only efficiency improvements on fitness accessories popularized in the last two decades of the last century. I traded my Walk-man for an iPod and VHS tapes for digital workout videos. But, at the core, there’s no part of my fitness life today that I couldn’t do if I got into Marty McFly’s borrowed DeLoreon and dialed up 1985.

It’s a 60 minute video, broken down into six ten-minute segments. The first five train strength, flexibility and balance through vinyasa yoga, Pilates and quigong movements. The final segment is flexibility training using yoga poses or asanas. Each segment is a full-body workout with a focus on the core. I do two ten-minute segments each Tuesday so I cycle through the entire video every three weeks. I play the digital version on my laptop and perform in my house, on my patio or anywhere I travel.

Several years ago, I developed a step routine using the bottom step of my basement stairs. I loaded one of my workout playlists and experimented with simple stepping patterns. After a few months, I got a traditional aerobic step with two sets of risers so I could incorporate more patterns, do the routine anywhere in my house and up the intensity by raising the step. My playlists consist of six fast-beat songs for the workout followed by one slower-paced song for cool down and stretch. I use a unique step pattern for each of the six songs and I tweak it regularly to keep it fresh.

A timed circuit is a strength training workout I developed for a time-crunched client. It’s intense enough to also qualify as a moderate cardio workout. I perform two ten-minute circuits. I either do a body-weight workout consisting mostly of variations on planks, push ups and crunches or I do traditional strength training exercises like dead lifts, squats and lunges that are each paired with different upper body exercises using five pound free weights.

After nearly three decades of fitness training, it’s still my favorite workout of the week. Though, that’s true only if I don’t give a darn about distance or speed. I simply enjoy the experience of running, no fitness trackers or apps allowed. My weekly runs inspired my playlists of six fast-paced songs followed by a slower cool-down song. I put on the playlist, run and stop running at the end of the sixth song. On days I’m feeling especially good, I’ll go faster, maybe even sprint through the last lap. Some days I just don’t have “it” so I focus on form and keeping a steady pace. I run about 25 minutes and cover between 2.5-3 miles on an outdoor track or dirt trail. If the weather keeps me inside, I substitute a HIIT workout at home.

My husband and I walk into town to get cups of joe to-go at our favorite coffee shop and walk back home. We take routes with the steepest hills to give our workout a boost. The loop takes about an hour and about one-third of the walking is uphill.

With more time available on the weekends, my husband and I do this entire 50 minute digital workout video together. The structure is ten-minute segments each of upper body, thigh, glute and abdominal strength and flexibility training followed by one full-body flexibility segment. The concept is high repetition of a fusion of traditional strength training, yoga, Pilates and Lotte Berk Method exercises to strengthen, lengthen and tone muscles. The only segment that requires special equipment is the upper body piece using one set of free weights.

Add to this, I home cook most of our family meals and you can see my fitness plan is pretty gosh-darn old-school.

My point isn’t to suggest copying my regimen but to illustrate that getting fit doesn’t require a substantial investment of your time or money. Nor does it require ceding space in your home to exercise equipment, commuting back and forth to a gym or keeping up with exercise fads. All that’s needed is a little creativity and a commitment to just try a few accessible, inexpensive options in your home or outdoors and go with what feels good to you. Invest prudently in the minimum of what’s needed to make your workouts safe, effective and enjoyable. In no time at all, you’ll be rocking out your workouts old-school style too.

This month’s Small Step is a trip back in time. The time before a majority of Americans was struggling with weight gain from growing food portions and decreasing daily physical activity. It’s all about eating and exercising old-school.

Old School Exercise

There are three factors exercise studies have repeatedly proven will make workouts more enjoyable and productive: working out with others, with music and outdoors.

In exercise studies, exercising with others or to fast-paced music have been shown to subconsciously motivate the exerciser to workout at a higher intensity than if she had exercised alone or without music. Interestingly, post exercise, participants in these studies were unaware that they had worked out any harder than they had alone or without music and reported enjoying the workout more than they did sans partner(s) and music.

Studies also show exercising outdoors has the same effect. Outdoor workouts heighten the body’s natural endorphin response to exercise. Meaning, compared to exercising indoors, the body has higher perceived feelings of pleasure when exercising outside. This not only spurs the exerciser into working out at a higher intensity but also gives her an increased post-workout high, making it more likely she’ll be back tomorrow. This response is true even on cloudy days but sunny days increase the good feelings even more.

It wasn’t long ago that anyone who was into fitness had no choice but to exercise outside. Full-service gyms and boutique studios are a relatively new phenomenon. Exercising outside – like we did instinctively when we were kids – is truly old-school.

Let’s take it outside! Exercise outdoors one day each week for 30-60 minutes without concern for special equipment, membership fees or class schedules. Here’s how to choose what’s right for you:

New to exercise? This should be low impact, like walking.

Already exercising indoors regularly? Either add one more day to your cardio routine with an outdoor workout or take one of your familiar weekly indoor workouts up a notch outside. To up the calorie burn, do walk/power walk or jog/run intervals.

Walk, run or cycle outdoors already? Try walk or run interval training one day per week to keep it fresh and get more out of your usual workout. If you cycle, either add more hills or do interval sprints on flat straightaways.

If you can, partner up with someone but, if not, take your favorite upbeat music with you. Plan ahead and have a back-up day in the inevitable event that life (or weather) gets in the way of your old-school workout.

Stay safe and injury free. Invest in quality footwear specifically designed for your workout discipline. If you have a softer surface nearby to amble on, like a track or dirt trail, choose that over pavement for some or all of your trek. Exercise in daylight or, if you must workout in the dark, wear reflective clothing and a light, choose well-lit streets (preferably with sidewalks) and always face on-coming traffic. Stretch all the muscles you’ve worked at the conclusion of your workout. Stay hydrated – plain water is best for the average workout.

Old School Diet

What I remember about our diet when I was younger is eating out was reserved for special occasions, the only option for fresh produce was in-season fruits and veggies, and large meals were cooked on the weekends, providing several leftover meals during the week. When you compare the obesity rates from then to now it’s clear we, as a society, were doing something right then that we aren’t doing now. And science bears this out. The more control we have over purchasing, preparing and portioning the food we eat, the fewer calories we consume and the better the overall nutrition of those calories.

Find where you are on the following continuum to learn your old-school diet solution:

Reduce: If you eat restaurant/take-out meals one or more times per week regularly, reduce that occurrence by one meal per week. Next month, subtract another restaurant meal from your weekly schedule and so on.

Replace: Maybe restaurant meals rare for you. Is your downfall busy weeknights when you throw together a meal from a series of boxes, cans, jars and frozen concoctions? Replace processed with pre-prepped whole foods. In large grocers you can find pre-washed, pre-cut veggies and trimmed, deboned lean proteins for an easy, healthy stir-fried, baked or grilled meal in 30 minutes. Also, make a habit of preparing a large meal on weekends so you have leftover options and quick clean-up on busy weeknights.

Refocus: If you’re good about avoiding processed foods then your retro move could be getting the most nutrition out of what you’re eating. One nice thing about modern-day produce is, if you need fresh strawberries in Vermont in December, you can get them. But, let’s face it, they’re expensive and don’t taste anything like a Vermont-grown June strawberry. Nor are they likely as nutritious. Temperature variants and exposure to air and light over travel time causes produce to lose some of their nutrients. Refocus your priorities to buy produce in season and, whenever possible, local. They’re likely to be at their peak in taste and nutrition and the most economical. Eat them raw or minimally cooked to get the most nutrients out of them.

If you’re new to the Small Steps series, you can read about the philosophy and strategies of the series here. Know the Small Steps strategies don’t need to be done in any particular order and are independent of one another. So, you can begin the series with this post, continue throughout the rest of the year and pick up what you missed next year.